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forth till the Ariye leader dispatched them and turned to see another man falling to his
knees behind him, a haft protruding from his blade-choked throat. The soldier's arm was
upraised to plunge his blade into Aranur's back, but it went no farther. Dion's knife had
sunk deep; his eyes bulged, and his mouth spit blood.
164 Tara K. Harper
Aranur scrambled to help Dion, who was now weaponless, pressed against the logs by a
long-armed swordsman. The soldier stabbed at her, sure that he had the wolfwalker
trapped, but she somehow managed to turn the blade, lunging to the side and striking his
elbow with her palm. She stunned his nerves, and the sword dropped, but he twisted and
grabbed at her jerkin. As she went with the pull, he flew over her shoulder but yanked her
to the side and grabbed her arm, his quickly bared knife stabbing. She fell. His blade
seemed to pass through her side, and her eyes were wild, and then the wolf was on him,
too, tearing the leather of his mail and ripping the tendons of his other arm. He screamed,
throwing up his arms to protect his face, but she twisted his knife from his hands and
brought her arm down to his chest twice, and he was finally silent, only his body thrashing
in his mortal throes. It was a hard death.
"Are you all right?" Aranur shouted through the noise, lifting Dion to her shaking feet and
looking for the blood that should have been spreading across her stomach. "Yes! Help
Tyrel!"
She dived for her sword, which had been dropped in the brush, and Aranur turned to see
the youth thrust back by two of the soldiers, ganging up. Shilia and Namina there was no
one to protect them, he thought with sudden fear. Rhom was down, wrestling with a burly
man in the branches of a log, their struggles crashing them back and forth as their blades
flashed and jammed together. Aranur jumped another dnu huddled on the ground and cut
at the nearest man. But the soldier turned and parried the blow easily. A master
swordsman, Aranur thought with grim certainty at his movements, to make sure we don't
escape. Clintner must have realized who the fleeing people were. The man from Ariye
lunged suddenly, pressing the other fighter back against the logs, but the swordsman
stepped aside and then he was on Aranur, the blade flashing at the tall man's head as he
twisted and turned. The swordsman's snarling grin held the joy of a fight, and Aranur
could feel the rise of his own battle exultation in his chest.
His arm turned a blow to land heavily against a log. He could feel Gamon fighting behind
him and Rhom getting up from the side; the air seemed alive with limbs and metal flashing
and snapping in the light. Behind him, the Gray One snarled and someone else screamed.
Then the swordsman feinted, and Ar-
WOLFWALKER
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anur stepped in, anticipating his blow. The other man twisted. Aranur swung. His
opponent parried. Aranur lunged. He smashed his fist against the swordsman's chin
unexpectedly, and the other man's eyes widened in shock as he staggered, but Aranur
brought his blade up against the underside of the man's arm. It slid off, and the
swordsman's elbow jammed into Ar-anur's ribs.
Aranur sucked in a ragged breath. Pain stabbed his stomach where the man's pommel met
his gut again as he smashed his knee into the man's thigh. The swordsman staggered, his
muscles cramping up from the attack, and Aranur brought his boot back down on the
swordsman's instep, their long blades useless as they closed the distance. They grappled.
The ground came up suddenly, and they fell, Aranur's shoulder jarring hard against a log.
The man tried to kick Aranur's knee, but Aranur trapped his neck in the crook of his arm
and squeezed the soldier's carotid arteries. The man's breath was harsh, and his eyes
bulged in panic. He realized that Aranur was not trying to choke him; the icy-eyed leader
meant to shut off the blood to his brain. The man's fear strengthened his hands to rip at
Aranur's face. One, two, three . . . Aranur twisted him to trap one of his arms and keep the
soldier from tearing his eyes out. Four, five . . . The man's legs thrashed, but he was
slowing. Six, seven, eight. . . The muscles began to relax at last. Nine, ten, eleven . . .
twelve. The man's body was limp; Aranur's breathing was rough in his throat.
Aranur rolled off the lifeless carcass and slowly got to his feet, his face and side so bruised
that he could feel the new swellings rise under his probing fingers. Namina was crying;
Shilia was pale. Dion was kneeling by Rhom, binding another pad of cloth over the one
that already was soaked bright red his shoulder had broken open again when he had
wrestled Clint-ner's man down and even from where Aranur stood, he could see the
healer's hands shaking so that she had to try twice to tie the bandage down. Around her,
the wolf paced like a lepa over its brood, the baleful glare spearing first one, then another
of those who still lived. The creature's fangs were red and dripping, cloth was still caught
in her claws, and when Gamon stood up, the wolf almost took his head off, stopped only by
Dion's sharp command. The Gray One went back to pacing, but her eyes did not lose the
ring of black that darkened the yellow into death.
166 Tara K. Harper
And the soldiers' bodies lay like scattered lumps of cloth, the seabirds already circling,
landing, stalking across the small dunes to pick out still-open eyes and peck at soft, open
throats. And among them Aranur swallowed and closed his eyes Ainna. Dead and limp
as the soldiers who had bled out around her.
He forced himself to finish the tally, hating himself for doing it with such cold control and
terrified mat the pressure that had built up in his chest would cut loose and flood even his
lungs with tears as big as blocks of ice. Moons give him strength, he prayed. He counted.
Three of the dnu were still, the others huddled around them, bleating softly in their
nervousness. There were at least four more dnu close by, but the rest had scattered across
the dunes like the jumper bushes that grew so haphazardly in the sand. At least six of the
soldiers who had attacked were still alive, groaning and writhing with their separate pains,
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